


I don't want your soul, Dean Winchester (your brother will do nicely)

by professorandre1228



Category: Supernatural, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Coda to 7.06 (Slash Fiction), Fate of the Winchesters, Fate of the World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:08:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26563375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professorandre1228/pseuds/professorandre1228
Summary: The real Loki (Marvel version, so sue me) shows up after Sam leaves Dean on the bridge after Leviathan!Dean told Sam about Amy's demise.  He was really friends with Gabriel and he's not happy at what he finds.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	I don't want your soul, Dean Winchester (your brother will do nicely)

“You know, I really was hoping Gabriel would have won that wager.”

Dean spun around from where he’d just watched his brother disappear down the path with his backpack and duffel. He had been lost in confusion, hurt, anger, knowing he should apologize to Sam, knowing he would be lying if he said he was sorry he’d killed Amy, knowing any apology would only make Sam more upset.

Standing not far away was Gabriel, holding a walking stick with both hands and leaning on it resignedly. His usually honey colored eyes were more of a ice blue now and were sadly still looking in the direction that Sam had gone. 

“You’re not Gabriel?” Dean asked after his brain caught up. The golden-haired man turned his amused eyes onto Dean with a smirk, then had morphed into a tall, raven-haired man in a green leather outfit. The walking stick had become a golden staff, which matched the golden, horned crown on his head. He was slender and pale but exuded power in the way Gabriel had exuded energy. “Loki.”

“Yes, well,” Loki said, standing up straighter, matching Dean’s height and maybe an inch or two more, but still less than Sam. Dean glanced behind himself to make sure Sam wasn’t going to walk into whatever this was, but secretly hoping he would. “When Gabriel told me how messed up his family was, I initially scoffed at him. I mean, I had to deal with Odin and Thor on a day to day basis and thought, surely, no one was as screwed up as we were.” Loki released the staff and it stood without assistance straight up as he clasped his hands behind his back and began to stroll casually around. 

“Huh,” Dean grunted, letting his arms hang loose as he thought about his options. If this really was the real Loki, then the mistletoe stake they had tried on Gabriel would really work this time. “Minus the god powers, your family is just as dysfunctional as the rest of us, pal.” Loki, who had been pacing with his eyes down on the ground in front of him, smiled broadly and turned his head sideways to look at the hunter. 

“I’m not disagreeing,” the tall demi-god said, “In fact, it’s why I allowed the arrangement with the archangel. Two rebellious sons, both mischievous, running from their families, why not enjoy sharing the chaos? I was not in hiding as he was, so it made sense that he share in my powers and in my responsibilities.” Dean frowned.

“Responsibilities?”

“Yes,” Loki laughed, “Do you honestly think I wanted to be the one to give birth to an eight-legged horse?” When Dean’s face scrunched up on concern and disgust, the demi-god laughed harder. “I have had multiple wives and have multiple children. Giving birth myself was never in my purview. And strangely, he offered to take it on, if only to experience it. Odd being, was Gabriel. Very powerful, but was too curious and certainly impulsive. Locking away his powers at his request was probably for the best.” 

“But he’s dead, right?” Dean asked uncertainly. “I mean, it wasn’t just an illusion this time?”

By now, Loki was standing directly in front of Dean, smiling down at him coldly.

“Yes, he’s dead. He died doing what he thought was right. What you boys talked him into.” When Dean opened his mouth to protest, Loki raised one finger and the hunter found he couldn’t make a sound. “Yes, you bullied and Sam cajoled and Gabriel caved. Probably the first time in all the millennia that I’ve know him that someone other than myself has made him change his mind. And his brother would have known if his death was faked, so it happened and my friend died. Now,” he hissed as he leaned closer to Dean, faces only inches apart, “I escape the prison my own brother and father locked me away in to come and check on his favorite humans and find this.” He threw an arm in the direction of where Sam had rounded the corner and vanished.

Dean couldn’t help that his head swiveled to follow the motion, then whipped back to where Loki was leaning back and stalking in front of him like an apex predator. Dean’s mouth moved but no sound escaped. Loki glared at him as he paused, then waved a hand dismissively. Suddenly, Dean could makes sounds again.

“Please, explain how soulmates, brothers who have died for each other many, many times, have reached the point, not the first, as I’m aware, where it’s suddenly ‘too much’” Loki stopped, crossing his arms across his chest and glared at Dean.

“He left, first off,” Dean growled, feeling his confidence growing. “I didn’t make him leave.”

“This time,” Loki said with an eye roll. Dean squared his shoulder and came up to the demi-god with his finger pointed harshly at his face.

“Me and Sam got issues, okay? He screws up and I have to fix ‘em. He lies and I have to learn to trust him again. We’ve been lied to by angels, demons, shifters, you name it. Friggin’ manipulated to Hell and back, literally. He chose a demon over me. He should be thanking me for cleaning up behind him. And I’m getting really friggin’ tired of everyone saying ‘poor Sammy’. It’s like I’m just his personal assistant.” He watched Loki’s eyebrow quirk up to nearly his hairline and the corners of his mouth quirk down. Dean threw up his hands and turned to finish tossing the leviathan heads in the running river. “And we’re dealing with these things, you know. Not like we got time to sit around singing Kumbaya.”

He rolled his shoulders after dumping both the heads and watching them tumble down the river, sinking below the roiling waters. Upon turning, he expected to find Loki still glaring at him. His step stuttered, however, when what he saw was the demi-god sitting on the hood of the car, his feet on the front bumper. His elbows were on his knees, hands dangling between them. The look on his face was so reminiscent of Sammy that he swallowed a ball in his throat, then strode past him to grab a beer from the cooler in the backseat. He popped the cap, drinking deeply.

“Dean,” said the now quiet voice. It made the hunter pause and come back around to the front of the car, the demi-god’s eyes following him over his shoulder all the way around. “Do you still love Sam?” This made the green-eyed man jerk back and glare at him.

“Of course!” He nearly yelled immediately. Loki held up a hand tiredly.

“Has there ever been a time you did not love your brother?” Dean opened his mouth to respond a resounding ‘no’, but something made the word stick in his throat. He thought back to all the times he’d felt betrayed. 

When Sam left for Stanford, left him and Dad to make a life without them. When he had found out Sam was consorting with a demon and drinking her blood. When Sam lied to him more than once about not doing it anymore. When Sam chose the demon blood over him in that hotel room. When Sam had freed Lucifer. When Sam had talked him out of saying yes to Michael but then talked them into letting him say yes to Lucifer. When he’d found out Sam had been out of Hell for a year before he found out. When Sam had tried to kill Bobby stop Dean from being able to put his soul back. When Sam’s wall had cracked and he’d hidden the hallucinations. When Sam had disappeared to go track down that kitsune, the one that had caused this recent split, and he’d found out that his brother had lied as a kid about what had happened and now was angry that Dean had cleaned up his mess again. 

“No,” he finally said, shoulders slumping. “There’ve been times when I didn’t like him at all, but I always loved him.” Loki eyed him curiously for a long, silent, moment. 

“Has Sam ever done anything deliberately to harm you or anyone else?”

Dean shrugged with one shoulder. Honestly, there wasn’t a mean bone in Sam’s body. Even as Soulless Sam, he’d asked for Dean to stay around because while he didn’t ‘care’ about anything anymore, he still trusted his older brother to guide him. 

He finally grunted non-committedly and took another deep swig of his beer. Loki sighed and nodded, dropping his head into his hands for a moment. 

“Do you know what Gabriel said to me that last time, before he left to find you both at Kali’s invitation? Against my advice, mind you,” Loki asked without raising his head. Dean cleared his throat. 

“No, what did he say to you that last time, before he left to find us at that hotel full of pagan gods out to use us for their own purposes?” Dean snarked. The beer bottle was halfway to his mouth before he realized it had been turned into a snake and jumped back, flinging it away. Eyes wide, he watched the snake shimmer just as it hit the railing and the beer bottle shattered.

“Only my oath to Gabriel prevents me from outright erasing you from existence right now, puny human,” Loki ground out. When Dean looked up, the demi-god was once again standing straight and tall, his staff in hand. His eyes glowed a fierce blue. “I am a mere instant away from whisking your brother away to Asgard where my children will protect him and care for him until the end of time and leaving you behind as a statue for beasts to vacate their bowels upon.” Dean gulped and took an unsteady step back, his eyes glancing towards the trunk that he had left open, trying to remember where exactly that mistletoe stake was.

“You better rethink touching my brother,” he growled, glaring at the demi-god. Loki gave him a slow, dark smile, then vanished, reappearing at the trunk of the car and reaching casually inside before Dean could move an inch. He pulled out the stake and it crumbled into ash that drifted from his wiggling fingers into the breeze. 

“The last thing Gabriel said to me,” Loki told him in a sinister voice dripping with loathing, “Was that if you two, who had been created by manipulation, lead by lies, tormented by Heaven and Hell and everything in between, could survive all that and still be so loving and trusting of each other, then he could only hope to aspire to that and he had to try to talk his brother out of the destined battle. His only hope was that them being separated so long would not prevent them being able to be family again.”

Dean blinked. Gabriel had said something like that when he’d shown up to rescue them from Kali and Baldur, then again when returning to help them escape Lucifer. 

“I’ve seen into both your mind and Sam’s.” The demi-god was frowning now, not as predatory. “You blame Sam for everything, and yet continue to protect him. Your meaning of ‘protection’ obviously includes controlling every aspect of his life.” Before Dean could respond, Loki looked around as he continued. “And Sam blames himself for everything. He allows you to maintain control of his life because he trusts you far more than he trusts himself. It’s only when his trust is strained by times like these,” Loki said, turning his sad eyes back on the hunter, “that he takes back control of his own life.”

“That kid-,” Dean started, pointing down the road, but Loki cut him off.

“That MAN,” he growled, stalking closer again. “has been used, controlled, manipulated from birth, mortal.” Dean heard the word but felt the subtle threat. “You did not need to be led down the path Heaven and Hell wanted. All they had to do was make sure you loved him, then you stormed down that path without any guidance needed. You were a sword, a mindless thing to be possessed. Sam was and still is, the embodiment of the battle of good versus evil, as such exists in your world. He is so alike how Lucifer was before the fall, so Gabriel said. Yet now, he is the opposite personality-wise. Where Lucifer is pure evil, pretending to be good. Sam is a purely good soul, trying so hard to not do any evil. Where Lucifer used lies and manipulation to only his own ends, Sam uses his charm and understanding to help everyone else.”

Dean huffed but couldn’t deny any of it. Loki simply shook his head at the muscular hunter in front of him. 

“I had made a bet with Gabriel,” he said fiercely, “that if he died to protect the two of you, that it would be for naught as the nature of brothers is betrayal. Gabriel said that once you two were out from under the manipulation of Heaven and Hell, you would be free and never separate again over arguments.”

“What…,” Dean coughed as something caught in his throat, “What was the prize?” Loki smiled sadly.

“If Gabriel had won, I was to place spells on both of you that would protect you from any further harm and return every five decades to make sure you were given the option of a new start or being sent to your place in Heaven.”

“And if you won?” Dean asked.

“I was free to take over the Earth as my own domain to rule.” The smile was cold again, the look calculating. Dean shifted from foot to foot.

“Won’t the other gods, or you know, Heaven, have a say in that?” Loki tilted his head.

“Angels fear to tread upon the Earth and will not challenge a new ruler, as long as it’s not demons. And as the Judeo-Christian God has fled the universe, I’m unopposed.” 

“We’d find a way to stop you,” the hunter growled. Loki threw his head back and laughed.

“Yes, I suppose you would try. But I’m only here speaking to you now because I’m willing to offer you the chance to save the world, Dean.” Dean’s eyes narrowed and he rose to his full height, fists clenched.

“Make a deal with a trickster? The Trickster? Didn’t know you needed souls.” 

“Not your soul, Dean. Your brother.” Dean’s eyes widen and he couldn’t stop himself from throwing a punch at the demi-god, who shimmered out of existence. “Amusing, mortal.” Dean whirled and saw Loki leaning against the railing over the river. “Follow my rules and you have the chance to change the future. Don’t and I take your brother to Asgard. Refuse to play and I take him anyway and you solidify into marble on the spot.” He shrugged and held up his hands. 

“What are the rules?” Dean growled. Loki laughed.

“Excellent. I like you a little better than I did. One simple rule, Dean. You must take every thought in your head, every betrayal you perceive that your brother perpetrated, and spend 30 minutes looking at it from Sam’s side.”

“What the-?” Dean started in annoyance.

“Nuh, uh,” Loki wagged a finger at him. “I’ll know if you’re cheating. I’m not even expecting you to change your mind, but only to consider that your current stance may be a bit more hypocritical than you want to admit. You believe your brother needs you to keep him on the ‘straight and narrow’. I do so love Midgardian colloquialisms. He believes you to be the only person he can rely on for anything, the only one that ever has or ever will truly care about him. This is your chance to help Gabriel win his bet still. Your chance to save the world. What do you say? Hmmm?”

Dean stared at him for a moment.

“Okay, I’ll play.” When Loki smiled broadly, the hunter shook his head. “Not sure what you think it’ll accomplish, but I’m curious. Gabriel lost the bet. Why give us this chance?”

“First and foremost,” Loki smirked, “Your acceptance is binding.” He pointed the staff towards Dean and felt something on his left shoulderblade. It felt like ice had been laid against his bare skin, but faded quickly as he hissed. “It’s invisible to all except the Norse gods. Next, the bet would only be won or lost once you and your brother were no longer being manipulated by Heaven and Hell.” His smile was cold and feral. “Who says there are no longer angels or demons still trying to maneuver pieces into place to manipulate you two further?” And then Loki leapt upwards and vanished into thin air. 

“Son of a bitch!” Dean growled. He twisted and turned but could not see his shoulder blade, nor feel anything on it. He leaned into the door mirror but saw only skin, no sigil, no scar, nothing. “Freaking gods!” He went around to close the trunk before climbing behind the wheel. His cell phone was on the dash and his first thought was to call Sam and tell him what had happened, but the hurt, the betrayal was still too close to the surface. Instead, he pulled back onto the highway and headed towards the nearest diner for coffee and pie. He nearly swerved off the road when he heard a faint voice in his ear.

“Remember the one rule,” it said in Loki’s voice. He muttered, feeling whatever it was on his shoulder itch slightly. Rolling his eyes, he turned his thoughts inward and started from the beginning. So, when Sammy left for Stanford. He felt the instant surge of anger, sadness, and betrayal that always accompanied the first thought. From his own point of view, it had been shocking but not unexpected. He’d felt for a while that Sam didn’t want to be a hunter and would try to get out as soon as possible. It didn’t matter how much he and his dad pushed him and told him it was his job, his duty, he had been stubborn, argumentative and withdrawn. 

This time, he tried to see it from his brother’s standpoint. If he changed his thought patterns to what he assumed teenaged Sam thought about all the time, he saw things change. Sam had never known his mother and his father was obsessed with hunting down the demon. John had rarely been around, leaving Dean to care for his younger brother. Dean had hidden a lot from Sam growing up, trying to give Sam that normalcy he’d had for only the first four years. And once Sam had found out the truth about monsters, about their dad, he’d had his entire worldview shifted instantly and his first fear had been that if they were real, they could get Dean and dad and himself. And that was his terror. He saw that dad would always cut Sam off any time he tried to explain his feelings and Dean had always followed what his dad did. Now, he realized that both he and his dad had simply ignored everything Sam said if it didn’t fit into their ‘family business’ mantra. Dean wiped his hand over his mouth as he realized that college had been the only way his brother had seen himself surviving the hunting life, as he’d always been more suited to research. And he hadn’t wanted to watch his father and brother throw themselves again and again at the monsters that promised death. 

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself. The thing on his shoulder pulsed once, cool but more like a brief touch of a breeze. As he pulled into the parking lot of the diner, he sat for a moment, lost in thought. He wasn’t ready to completely change his stance, but he realized he needed to pay closer attention and maybe listen more when Sam talked about his feelings. If he ever got Sam to talk to him again. With a deep sigh, he climbed out and headed inside. 

On the sidewalk, Loki, in his Gabriel disguise, smiled to himself and vanished. 


End file.
